ended
Everything that exists moves onward to destruction and decay
Fairest dreams of childhood were surpassed
From Epicurus to Aristippus, is but a short step
Golden chariot drawn by tamed lions
Jealousy has a thousand eyes
Life had fulfilled its pledges
No, she was not created to grow old
Nothing in life is either great or small
Pain is the inseparable companion of love
Preferred a winding path to a straight one
Priests: in order to curb the unruly conduct of the populace
See facts as they are and treat them like figures in a sum
Shadow of the candlestick caught her eye before the light
She would not purchase a few more years of valueless life
Soul which ceases to regard death as a misfortune finds peace
To govern the world one must have less need of sleep
Trouble does not enhance beauty
Until neither knew which was the giver and which the receiver
What changes so quickly as joy and sorrow
Without heeding the opinion of mortals
Zeus does not hear the vows of lovers

THE EMPEROR, Complete

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.

Translated by Clara Bell

PREFACE.

It is now fourteen years since I planned the story related in these
volumes, the outcome of a series of lectures which I had occasion to
deliver on the period of the Roman dominion in Egypt. But the pleasures
of inventive composition were forced to give way to scientific labors,
and when I was once more at leisure to try my wings with increase of
power I felt more strongly urged to other flights. Thus it came to pass
that I did I not take the time of Hadrian for the background of a tale
till after I had dealt with the still later period of the early monastic
move in "Homo Sum." Since finishing that romance my old wish to depict,
in the form of a story, the most important epoch of the history of that
venerable nation to which I have devoted nearly a quarter century of my
life, has found its fulfilment. I have endeavored to give a picture of
the splendor of the Pharaonic times in "Uarda," of the subjection of
Egypt to the new Empire of the Persians in "An Egyptian Princess," of the
Hellenic period under the Lagides in "The Sisters," of the Roman dominion
and the early growth of Christianity in "The Emperor," and of the
anchorite spirit--in the deserts and rocks of the Sinaitic Peninsula--in
"Homo Sum." Thus the present work is the last of which t